National Security Letters in
Foreign Intelligence Investigations:
A Glimpse at the Legal Background
Charles Doyle
Senior Specialist in American Public Law
July 31, 2015
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
RS22406
National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
Summary
Five federal statutes authorize intelligence officials to request certain business record information
in connection with national security investigations. The authority to issue these national security
letters (NSLs) is comparable to the authority to issue administrative subpoenas. The USA
PATRIOT Act (P.L. 107-56) expanded the authority under the original four NSL statutes and
created a fifth. Thereafter, the authority was reported to have been widely used. Then, a report by
the Department of Justice’s Inspector General (IG) found that in its use of expanded USA
PATRIOT Act authority the FBI had “used NSLs in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney
General Guidelines, and internal FBI policies,” although it concluded that no criminal laws had
been broken. A year later, a second IG report confirmed the findings of the first, and noted the
corrective measures taken in response. A third IG report, critical of the FBI’s use of exigent letters
and informal NSL alternatives, noted that the practice had been stopped and related problems
addressed.
The USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act (P.L. 109-177, and its companion, P.L.
109-178) amended the five NSL statutes to expressly provide for judicial review of both the NSLs
and the confidentiality requirements that attend them. The sections were made explicitly subject
to judicial enforcement and to sanctions for failure to comply with an NSL request or to breach
NSL confidentiality requirements. Prospects of its continued use dimmed, however, after two
lower federal courts held that the absolute confidentiality requirements and the limitations on
judicial review rendered one of the NSL statutes constitutionally suspect.
The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies recommended
several NSL statutory adjustments designed to eliminate differences between NSLs and court
orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“§215 orders”), including requiring preissuance judicial approval of NSLs. Instead in the USA FREEDOM Act, P.L. 114-23 (H.R. 2048),
Congress opted to adjust the NSL judicial review provisions governing the nondisclosure
requirements that may accompany NSLs. It also precludes the use of NSL authority for bulk
collection of communications or financial records. Finally, it adjusts existing reporting
requirements to permit recipients to publicly disclose the extent to which they have been
compelled to comply with NSLs.
This is an abridged version of CRS Report RL33320, National Security Letters in Foreign
Intelligence Investigations: Legal Background, without the footnotes, appendixes, and most of the
citations to authority found in the longer report.
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National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
Contents
Background ...................................................................................................................................... 1
NSL Amendments in the 109th Congress ......................................................................................... 3
Inspector General’s Reports ............................................................................................................. 3
NSLs in Court .................................................................................................................................. 4
Recommendations of the President’s Review Group....................................................................... 5
USA FREEDOM Act ....................................................................................................................... 5
Comparison of NSL Attributes ........................................................................................................ 6
Tables
Table 1. Profile of the Current NSL Statutes ................................................................................... 7
Contacts
Author Contact Information............................................................................................................. 8
Congressional Research Service
National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
Background
National security letter (NSL) authority began with dissatisfaction with the exception to the
privacy provisions of the Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA). Congress initially acted, without
a great deal of analysis on the record, to be sure the exception was not too broadly construed. But
the exception was just that, an exception. It was neither an affirmative grant of authority to
request information nor a command to financial institutions to provide information when asked. It
removed the restrictions on the release of customer information imposed on financial institutions
by the Right to Financial Privacy Act, but it left them free to decline to comply when asked to do
so.
[I]n certain significant instances, financial institutions [had] declined to grant the FBI access
to financial records in response to requests under [S]ection 1114(a). The FBI informed the
Committee that the problem occurs particularly in States which have State constitutional
privacy protection provisions or State banking privacy laws. In those States, financial
institutions decline to grant the FBI access because State law prohibits them from granting
such access and the RFPA, since it permits but does not mandate such access, does not
override State law. In such a situation, the concerned financial institutions which might
otherwise desire to grant the FBI access to a customer’s record will not do so, because State
law does not allow such cooperation, and cooperation might expose them to liability to the
customer whose records the FBI sought access.
Congress responded with passage of the first NSL statute as an amendment to the Right to
Financial Privacy Act, affirmatively giving the FBI access to financial institution records in
certain foreign intelligence cases. At the same time in the Electronic Communications Privacy
Act, it afforded the FBI comparable access to the telephone company and other communications
service provider customer information. Together the two NSL provisions afforded the FBI access
to communications and financial business records under limited circumstances—customer and
customer transaction information held by telephone carriers and banks pertaining to a foreign
power or its agents relevant to a foreign counterintelligence investigation.
Both the communications provider section and the Right to Financial Privacy Act section
contained nondisclosure provisions and limitations on further dissemination except pursuant of
guidelines promulgated by the Attorney General. Neither had an express enforcement mechanism
nor identified penalties for failure to comply with either the NSL or the nondisclosure instruction.
In the mid-1990s, Congress added two more NSL provisions—one permits NSL use in
connection with the investigation of government employee leaks of classified information under
the National Security Act; and the other grants the FBI access to credit agency records pursuant to
the Fair Credit Reporting Act, under much the same conditions as apply to the records of financial
institutions. The FBI asked for the Fair Credit Reporting Act amendment as a threshold
mechanism to enable it to make more effective use of its bank record access authority:
FBI’s right of access under the Right of Financial Privacy Act cannot be effectively used,
however, until the FBI discovers which financial institutions are being utilized by the subject
of a counterintelligence investigation. Consumer reports maintained by credit bureaus are a
ready source of such information, but, although such report[s] are readily available to the
private sector, they are not available to FBI counterintelligence investigators....
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National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
FBI has made a specific showing ... that the effort to identify financial institutions in order to
make use of FBI authority under the Right to Financial Privacy Act can not only be timeconsuming and resource-intensive, but can also require the use of investigative techniques—
such as physical and electronic surveillance, review of mail covers, and canvassing of all
banks in an area—that would appear to be more intrusive than the review of credit reports.
H.Rept. 104-427, at 36 (1996).
The National Security Act NSL provision authorized access to credit and financial institution
records of federal employees with security clearances who were required to give their consent as
a condition for clearance. Passed in the wake of the Ames espionage case, it is limited to
investigations of classified information leaks. As noted at the time,
The Committee believes [S]ection 801 will serve as a deterrent to espionage for financial
gain without burdening investigative agencies with unproductive recordkeeping or subjecting
employees to new reporting requirements.... The Committee recognizes that consumer credit
records have been notoriously inaccurate, and expects that information obtained pursuant to
this [S]ection alone will not be the basis of an action or decision adverse to the interest of the
employee involved.
Both the Fair Credit Reporting Act section and the National Security Act section contain
dissemination restrictions as well as safe harbor (immunity) and nondisclosure provisions.
Neither has an explicit penalty for improper disclosure of the request, but the Fair Credit
Reporting Act section expressly authorizes judicial enforcement.
The USA PATRIOT Act amended three of the four existing NSL statutes and added a fifth. In
each of the three NSL statutes available exclusively to the FBI—the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act section, the Right to Financial Privacy Act section, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act
section (§505 of the USA PATRIOT Act)
•
expanded FBI issuing authority beyond FBI headquarter officials to include the
heads of the FBI field offices (i.e., Special Agents in Charge [SACs]);
•
eliminated the requirement that the record information sought pertain to a foreign
power or the agent of a foreign power;
•
required instead that the NSL request be relevant to an investigation to protect
against international terrorism or foreign spying; and
•
added the caveat that no such investigation of an American can be predicated
exclusively on First Amendment-protected activities.
The amendments allowed NSL authority to be employed more quickly (without the delays
associated with prior approval from FBI headquarters) and more widely (without requiring that
the information pertain to a foreign power or its agents).
Subsection 358(g) of the USA PATRIOT Act amended the Fair Credit Reporting Act to add a fifth
and final NSL section, and the provision had one particularly noteworthy feature: it was available
not merely to the FBI but to any government agency investigating or analyzing international
terrorism:
Notwithstanding section 1681b of this title or any other provision of this subchapter, a
consumer reporting agency shall furnish a consumer report of a consumer and all other
information in a consumer’s file to a government agency authorized to conduct
investigations of, or intelligence or counterintelligence activities or analysis related to,
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National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
international terrorism when presented with a written certification by such government
agency that such information is necessary for the agency’s conduct or such investigation,
activity or analysis.
Although the subsection’s legislative history treats it as a matter of first impression, Congress’s
obvious intent was to provide other agencies with the national security letter authority
comparable to that enjoyed by the FBI under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The new section had
a nondisclosure and a safe harbor subsection, but no express means of judicial enforcement or
penalties for improper disclosure of a request under the section.
NSL Amendments in the 109th Congress
Both USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization statutes—P.L. 109-177 (H.R. 3199) and P.L. 109-178 (S.
2271)—amended the NSL statutes. They provided for judicial enforcement of the letter requests
and for judicial review of both the requests and accompanying nondisclosure requirements. They
established specific penalties for failure to comply or to observe the nondisclosure requirements.
They made it clear that the nondisclosure requirements do not preclude a recipient from
consulting an attorney. They provided a mechanism to lift the nondisclosure requirement. Finally,
they expanded congressional oversight and called for an Inspector General’s audit of use of the
authority.
Inspector General’s Reports
The Department of Justice Inspector General reports, one released in March of 2007, the second
in March of 2008, and the third in January of 2010, were less than totally favorable. The first
report noted that FBI use of NSLs had increased dramatically, expanding from 8,500 requests in
2000 to 47,000 in 2005, IG Report I at 120. During the three years under review, the percentage
of NSLs used to investigate Americans (“U.S. persons”) increased from 39% in 2003 to 53% in
2005. A substantial majority of the requests involved records relating to telephone or e-mail
communications. The report is somewhat critical of the FBI’s initial performance:
[W]e found that the FBI used NSLs in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney
General Guidelines, and internal FBI policies. In addition, we found that the FBI
circumvented the requirements of the ECPA NSL statute when it issued at least 739 “exigent
letters” to obtain telephone toll billing records and subscriber information from three
telephone companies without first issuing NSLs.
The second IG Report reviewed the FBI’s use of national security letter authority during calendar
year 2006 and the corrective measures taken following the issuance of the IG’s first report. The
second report concluded that the FBI’s use of national security letters in 2006 continued the
upward trend previously identified; the percentage of NSL requests generated from investigations
of U.S. persons increased from 39% of all NSL requests in 2003 to 57% in 2006; the FBI and
DOJ are committed to correcting the problems identified in IG Report I and have made
significant progress; and it is too early to say whether the corrective measures will resolve the
problems previously identified.
The third IG Report examined the FBI’s use of exigent letters and other informal means of
acquiring communication service provider’s customer records in lieu of relying on NSL authority
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National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
during the period from 2003 to 2007. The IG’s Office discovered that “the FBI’s use of exigent
letters became so casual, routine, and unsupervised that employees of all three communications
service providers sometimes generated exigent letters for FBI personnel to sign and return to
them.”
NSLs in Court
Prior to amendment, two lower federal court cases had indicated that the NSLs and practices
surrounding their use were contrary to the requirements of the First Amendment. On appeal, one
was dismissed as moot and the other sent back for reconsideration in light of the amendments.
Following remand and amendment of the NSL statutes, the District Court for the Southern
District of New York again concluded that the amended NSL secrecy requirements violated both
First Amendment free speech and separation of powers principles.
The Court of Appeals was similarly disposed, but concluded that the government could invoke
the secrecy and judicial review authority of the 18 U.S.C. 2709 and 18 U.S.C. 3511 in a limited
but constitutionally permissible manner. It stated that
If the Government uses the suggested reciprocal notice procedure as a means of initiating
judicial review, there appears to be no impediment to the Government’s including notice of a
recipient’s opportunity to contest the nondisclosure requirement in an NSL. If such notice is
given, time limits on the nondisclosure requirement pending judicial review, as reflected in
Freedman, would have to be applied to make the review procedure constitutional. We would
deem it to be within our judicial authority to conform subsection 2709(c) to First
Amendment requirements, by limiting the duration of the nondisclosure requirement, absent
a ruling favorable to the Government upon judicial review, to the 10-day period in which the
NSL recipient decides whether to contest the nondisclosure requirement, the 30-day period
in which the Government considers whether to seek judicial review, and a further period of
60 days in which a court must adjudicate the merits, unless special circumstances warrant
additional time. If the NSL recipient declines timely to precipitate Government-initiated
judicial review, the nondisclosure requirement would continue, subject to the recipient’s
existing opportunities for annual challenges to the nondisclosure requirement provided by
subsection 3511(b). If such an annual challenge is made, the standards and burden of proof
that we have specified for an initial challenge would apply, although the Government would
not be obliged to initiate judicial review.
Given the possibility of constitutional application, the court saw no reason to invalidate Sections
2709(c) and 3511(b) in toto. The exclusive presumptions of Section 3511 cannot survive, the
court declared, but the First Amendment finds no offense in the remainder of the two sections
except, the court observed, “to the extent that they fail to provide for Government-initiated
judicial review. The Government can respond to this partial invalidation ruling by using the
suggested reciprocal notice procedure.”
On remand under the procedure suggested by the Court of Appeals, the government submitted the
declaration of the senior FBI official concerning the continued need for secrecy concerning the
NSL. Following an ex parte, in camera hearing, the district court concluded the government had
met its burden, but granted the plaintiff’s motion for an unclassified, redacted summary of the
FBI declaration.
The possibility of a conflicting view has arisen in the Ninth Circuit. A federal district court there
agreed with the Second Circuit that the NSL confidentiality and judicial review provisions were
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National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
constitutionally suspect. Yet it could not agree with the Second Circuit that NSL authority might
be used if the confidentiality and judicial review provisions were implemented to satisfy
constitutional demands. The statutory language was too clear and the congressional intent too
apparent for the court to feel it could move in the opposite direction. It declared:
The statutory provisions at issue—as written, adopted and amended by Congress in the face
of a constitutional challenge—are not susceptible to narrowing conforming constructions to
save their constitutionality ... [I]n amending and reenacting the statute as it did, Congress
was concerned with giving the government the broadest powers possible to issue NSL
nondisclosure orders and preclude searching judicial review of the same ... [T]he sorts of
multiple inferences required to save the provisions at issue are not only contrary to evidence
of Congressional intent, but also contrary to the statutory language and structure of the
statutory provisions actually enacted by Congress.
The district court also concluded that, if the confidentiality and judicial review provisions relating
to Section 2709 could not survive; neither could the remainder of the section. The court,
therefore, barred the government from using Section2709’s NSL authority and from enforcing
related NSL confidentiality provisions. It stayed the order pending appeal.
Recommendations of the President’s Review Group
In the wake of leaks relating to the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) purported bulk meta-data
collection program, the President established a Review Group on Intelligence and
Communications Technology. The Group released its report and recommendations on December
12, 2013. Several of its recommendations addressed NSLs. NSL procedures, it said, should more
closely resemble those of Section 215 FISA court orders. Thus, it proposed that (1) the courts
approve all NSLs except in emergency circumstances; (2) Section 215 orders be used only in
international terrorism and international espionage investigations; (3) the NSL statutes be
amended to track Section 215 minimization requirements; (4) both NSLs and Section 215 orders
should be subject to greater oversight and public reporting requirements.
USA FREEDOM Act
Congress did not adopt the recommendations of the President’s Review Group, but the USA
FREEDOM Act addresses the judicially perceived NSL shortcomings in other ways. It eliminates
the prospect of Section 215-like bulk metadata collection under NSL authority. It revises the
procedures for the issuance of NSL nondisclosure provisions and for judicial review of their
issuance. Finally, it augments existing reporting requirements for greater transparency.
Each of the NSL statutes now includes a requirement that the NSL demand be limited to
specifically identified information rather than insisting on delivery of record information for all of
a recipient’s customers.
The USA FREEDOM Act handles the judicial review of nondisclosure orders with
complementary amendments to the NSL statutes and to Section 3511. Nondisclosure orders under
the amended NSL statutes are available only if the issuance officials notify recipients of their
right to judicial review and certify that disclosure may result in a danger to national security; in
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National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
interference with a criminal, counterterrorism, or counterintelligence investigation; in interference
with diplomatic relations; or in endangerment of an individual’s physical safety.
A nondisclosure order notwithstanding, a recipient may disclose to those necessary for execution
of the order, to an attorney for related legal advice, and to anyone else approved by the issuance
agency. The exception is conditioned upon the recipient’s notification of the issuance agency and
advising those he tells of the nondisclosure requirements binding on both of them.
The USA FREEDOM Act amends Section 3511 so that the issuing agency must petition for
judicial review upon request of the recipient. The petition must include a statement of specific
facts evidencing the risks that warrant a nondisclosure order—a risk of a danger to national
security, of interference with diplomatic relations or with a particular investigation, or of physical
injury. The court must issue the order if it finds reason to believe disclosure “during the
applicable time period” would bring with it such risks.
The reference to “the applicable time period” is the only indication of the permissible tenure of a
nondisclosure order. The phrase seems to contemplate that the petition will propose a time limit
on any nondisclosure order or at least the court will impose one. The legislative history suggests
that was the practice immediately prior to enactment of the USA FREEDOM Act. Of course, the
government was operating at the time under the pre-USA FREEDOM Act version of Section
3511, which afforded the opportunity for annual (and only annual) judicial review, and in the
shadow of the Second Circuit’s John Doe, Inc. decision.
The USA FREEDOM Act’s final NSL adjustment occurs in the area of public disclosures. It
directs the Director of National Intelligence to post on his website annually the number of NSLs
issued and the number of requests covered by those NSLs during the previous year. It also
permits a recipient of a FISA order or an NSL to publicly report, in one of four statutorily defined
alternatives, the total number of such FISA orders and NSLs and the total number of customers
covered by such orders or requests.
Comparison of NSL Attributes
The following table summarizes the differences among the five NSL sections: Section 1114(a)(5)
of the Right to Financial Privacy Act (12 U.S.C. 3414); Sections 626 and 627 of the Fair Credit
Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681u, 1691v); Section 2709 of Title 18 of the United States Code (18
U.S.C. 2709); and Section 802 of the National Security Act (50 U.S.C. 3162).
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National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
Table 1. Profile of the Current NSL Statutes
NSL Statute
18 U.S.C.
2709
12 U.S.C.
3414
15 U.S.C.
1681u
15 U.S.C.
1681v
50 U.S.C.
3162
Addressee
communications
providers
financial
institutions
consumer
credit agencies
consumer
credit agencies
financial
institutions,
consumer credit
agencies, travel
agencies
Certifying
officials
senior FBI
officials and
SACs
senior FBI officials
and SACs
senior FBI
officials and
SACs
supervisory
official of an
agency
investigating,
conducting
intelligence
activities
relating to or
analyzing int’l
terrorism
senior officials no
lower than Ass’t
Secretary or Ass’t
Director of agency
w/ employees w/
access to classified
material
Information
covered
identified
customer’s
name, address,
length of
service, and
billing info
identified
customer financial
records
identified
consumer’s
name, address,
former address,
place and
former place of
employment
all information
relating to an
identified
consumer
all financial
information
relating to
consenting,
identified
employee
Standard/
purpose
relevant to an
investigation to
protect against
int’l terrorism
or clandestine
intelligence
activities
sought for foreign
counterintelligence
purposes to
protect against
int’l terrorism or
clandestine
intelligence
activities
sought for an
investigation to
protect against
int’l terrorism
or clandestine
intelligence
activities
necessary for
the agency’s
investigation,
activities, or
analysis of int’l
terrorism
necessary to
conduct a law
enforcement
investigation,
counterintelligence
inquiry or security
determination
Dissemination
only per Att’y
Gen. guidelines
only per Att’y
Gen. guidelines
w/i FBI, to
secure approval
for intell.
investigation, to
military
investigators
when inform.
relates to
military
member
no statutory
provision
only to agency of
employee under
investigation, DOJ
for law
enforcement or
intell. purposes, or
fed. agency when
clearly relevant to
mission
Immunity/fees
no provisions
no provisions
fees; immunity
for good faith
compliance
with a NSL
immunity for
good faith
compliance
with a NSL
reimbursement;
immunity for good
faith compliance
with a NSL
Source: Congressional Research Service, based on statutes cited in the table.
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National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: A Glimpse at the Legal Background
Author Contact Information
Charles Doyle
Senior Specialist in American Public Law
cdoyle@crs.loc.gov, 7-6968
Congressional Research Service
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